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Île de l'Est, or East Island, is a part of the subantarctic archipelago of the Crozet Islands. With an area of it is the second largest island of the group. It is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Île de l'Est, or East Island, is a part of the subantarctic archipelago of the Crozet Islands. With an area of it is the second largest island of the group. It is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Description
The island is the easternmost of the archipelago, lying about 20 km east ofÎle de la Possession
Île de la Possession, or Possession Island, formerly Île de la Prise de Possession, is part of the Subantarctic Crozet Archipelago. Administratively, it is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. It is an important nesting site for ...
(Possession Island). The landscape is mainly bare rock; it is the most mountainous in the archipelago, with a high point of 1090 m, and a rugged coastline of high cliffs. It is dissected by several steep-sided valleys of glacial origin. The only introduced animals are rabbits. There is no human infrastructure; it is only occasionally visited by researchers.
Important Bird Area
The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International as a breeding site forseabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...
s. Key species include king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
, gentoo, macaroni and northern rockhopper penguin
The northern rockhopper penguin, Moseley's rockhopper penguin, or Moseley's penguin (''Eudyptes moseleyi'') is a penguin species native to the southern Indian and Atlantic Oceans. It is described as distinct from the southern rockhopper penguin.
...
s, wandering, grey-headed, light-mantled, sooty
Sooty is a British children's television media franchise created by Harry Corbett incorporating primarily television and stage shows. The franchise originated with his fictional glove puppet character introduced to television in 1955, with the ...
and black-browed albatross
The black-browed albatross (''Thalassarche melanophris''), also known as the black-browed mollymawk,Robertson, C. J. R. (2003) is a large seabird of the albatross family Diomedeidae; it is the most widespread and common member of its family.
T ...
es, both northern and southern giant petrels, medium-billed and fairy prion
The fairy prion (''Pachyptila turtur'') is a small seabird with the standard prion plumage of blue-grey upperparts with a prominent dark "M" marking and white underneath. The sexes are alike. This is a small prion of the low subantarctic and sub ...
s, great-winged, soft-plumaged, white-chinned, grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
, blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
and Kerguelen petrels, Wilson's, grey-backed and black-bellied storm petrel
The black-bellied storm petrel (''Fregetta tropica'') is a species of seabird in the family Oceanitidae.
It is found in Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Bouvet Island, Brazil, Chile, Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, French Southern Terri ...
s, common and South Georgia diving petrels, Crozet blue-eyed shags, brown skua
The brown skua (''Stercorarius antarcticus''), also known as the Antarctic skua, subantarctic skua, southern great skua, southern skua, or hākoakoa (Māori), is a large seabird that breeds in the subantarctic and Antarctic zones and moves furthe ...
s and Kerguelen tern
The Kerguelen tern (''Sterna virgata'') is a tern of the southern hemisphere.
This seabird mainly breeds colonially in the Kerguelen Islands, as its common name implies. However, smaller colonies are also found in the Prince Edward Islands (i. ...
s. Eaton's pintails are present. The island is also the site of the largest breeding population of southern elephant seal
The southern elephant seal (''Mirounga leonina'') is one of two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets its ...
s in the archipelago.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Île de l'Est. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-09.
See also
* List of Antarctic islands north of 60° SReferences
Important Bird Areas of the Crozet Islands Volcanoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Est Seabird colonies Penguin colonies {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-geo-stub